I asked 4 AI image generators to design a logo – the results were pretty messy
Using AI for business is still a grey area. It's extremely useful, but the results are never perfect. The latest and most advanced AI art generators can do a stellar job at bringing your ideas to life, but in nearly every instance, these images can be detected almost instantly from giveaways like multiple fingers and misspelt text. However, there are some AI-generated images that with a bit of enhancement could fool a majority (and even win photo competitions!).
I've been meaning to update my photography logo for years now, though I mainly use it for watermarking my images more so than for advertising or promotion. My photography website could use an update too, as even with one of the best website builders for photographers it still feels pretty bland to me.
My photography brand needs something fun yet simple (maybe with a bit of colour) to really up my logo game, so I decided to set some AI text-to-image generators with the challenge of designing my new photography logo, or at least to offer me some inspiration to create my own using a Photoshop alternative.
01. Adobe Firefly
First up, I headed to Adobe Firefly, which is said to be one of the most ethical AI image generators out there, equipped with a suite of generative tools and a data set trained only on open-source images, plus content that is no longer under copyright, and content from Adobe Stock.
I thought Firefly would be perfect for designing my photography logo, considering that as a content creator myself, the last thing I want to be doing is stealing work from another artist without even realising it. But, unfortunately, Adobe Firefly really didn't understand the assignment here and struggled so badly with my logo.
I started with a simple text prompt: 'A photography logo for bethshootsbands', and what resulted was chaos fuel (and a lot of men). Have a scroll through the image gallery below and you'll see what I mean. I'm not trying to imply that Firefly is at all sexist here, but c'mon. Women are photographers too.
I had a play around with some of the different art styles available, changed the format from photo to art, turned down the visual intensity slider, and even reverted to Firefly Gen 1 instead of 2 – which was much better for making logo and graphic design-type projects.
I had a lot of fun with Firefly but if this experiment taught me anything, it's that graphic designers and typographers really don't need to worry about their jobs, as these AI generators just can't seem to get text right, at least not on the first go.
Adobe Firefly 5/10 (sorry)
02. Stable Diffusion (Dream Studio)
I next moved on to Stable Diffusion's Dream Studio generative AI model, created by Stability AI, which offers extremely surreal images based on even the simplest of text prompts. I started with the same basic prompt as Firefly, and the first few results were a little 'meh' with misspelt text.
I also had to specify that I wanted a DSLR or mirrorless-style camera for the logo, as it always defaulted to a traditional film camera which I rarely use for my commissioned work.
Once I started tinkering around with the prompt wording and setting styles, this quickly became one of my favourite image generators to use. These prompts gradually evolved from: 'A simple photography business logo with the text 'bethshootsbands' into: 'A professional-looking photography logo with the text 'beth shoots bands' and a DSLR camera girl with red hair' – with the setting's style selected to anime (see final results below).
This anime style was a game-changer in creating my logo. While the images were obviously way too exciting and animated to be my actual photography logo, I like them and am so impressed with how these came out after a few attempts and tweaks. I also found that separating 'Bethshootsbands' into separate words helped the AI incorporate them better into the generated image.
The generated images all featured girls (even when 'girl' was not in the prompt) despite whichever art style was selected. This made me feel validated as a female photographer, but it isn't so great for any male photographers wanting representation. Maybe the AI interpreted my name (Beth) as more feminine? Anyway, I loved using this generator and had a lot of fun with it.
Stable Diffusion 9/10
03. Dall-E 2
Now this one was a mess. I didn't spend too long using OPenAI's Dall-E 2 image generator as frankly I was a little scared by the results. Not only did this AI also really really struggle with text, but I'm not even sure that what it generated were real images let alone a solid logo. It looked like someone had been taking photos through a peephole? Of scary people with blurry faces? No thanks.
I don't think I'm ever using this AI generator again.
DALL-E 2 1/10
04. Microsoft Bing AI
The generative AI from Microsoft Bing pleasantly surprised me. I already had high hopes that this generator would do well, given that it kicked off the hugely popular Disney Pixar AI pets trend that we reported on last year. I started off with the same basic prompt as Firefly and Dream Studio, and straight off the bat, the very first batch of images got it so right.
Although I was already happy with the first logo designs, I tried out a few more increasingly detailed prompts with Bing to see what this generator was capable of. These included: 'A simple photography logo with the text 'bethshootsbands' and a digital camera on a black background', as well as 'A professional-looking photography logo with the text 'beth shoots bands' and a DSLR mirrorless camera'.
I absolutely love these results! Even though Bing struggled with the text too, it's the only image generator out of the bunch I used that did manage to get my logo text Bethshootsbands right on most occasions without any error. I also tried out adding 'Anime-style' to the end of a few prompts just to see if it would work, and it did!
In terms of user-friendliness compared with helpful settings and overall functionality, I think Bing won the challenge here, offering several very useable logos that could genuinely work for my photography business.
Microsoft Bing AI 11/10
This was a really fun experiment to kickstart the morning, and although I now have some genuinely viable logo options, I don't think I'm going to use any of them without cleaning them up a bit using Photoshop, or seeking out the help of a professional graphic designer to help me get the logo I actually want.
I think the takeaway from this article should be that although AI can be a fun and easy way to get free assets for your business, it will never compare to the level of thought, connection, artistry, and detail that working with a graphic designer or digital artist can provide.
This experiment gave me a ton of inspiration and placement ideas to inform a "real" artist of what I want for my logo, and that's what I think AI should be used for. To generate and prompt your own ideas. For more idea generation, see our best logo designers.
